39 ideas
| 16943 | Philosophy is continuous with science, and has no external vantage point [Quine] |
| Full Idea: I see philosophy not as an a priori propaedeutic or groundwork for science, but as continuous with science. I see philosophy and science as in the same boat. …There is no external vantage point, no first philosophy. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.126) | |
| A reaction: Philosophy is generalisation. Science holds the upper hand, because it settles the subject-matter to be generalised. |
| 16949 | Klein summarised geometry as grouped together by transformations [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Felix Klein's so-called 'Erlangerprogramm' in geometry involved characterizing the various branches of geometry by what transformations were irrelevant to each. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.137) |
| 16939 | Mass terms just concern spread, but other terms involve both spread and individuation [Quine] |
| Full Idea: 'Yellow' and 'water' are mass terms, concerned only with spread; 'apple' and 'square' are terms of divided reference, concerned with both spread and individuation. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.124) | |
| A reaction: Would you like some apple? Pass me that water. It is helpful to see that it is a requirement of 'individuation' that is missing from terms for stuff. |
| 16948 | Once we know the mechanism of a disposition, we can eliminate 'similarity' [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Once we can legitimize a disposition term by defining the relevant similarity standard, we are apt to know the mechanism of the disposition, and so by-pass the similarity. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.135) | |
| A reaction: I love mechanisms, but can we characterise mechanisms without mentioning powers and dispositions? Quine's dream is to eliminate 'similarity'. |
| 16945 | We judge things to be soluble if they are the same kind as, or similar to, things that do dissolve [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Intuitively, what qualifies a thing as soluble though it never gets into water is that it is of the same kind as the things that actually did or will dissolve; it is similar to them. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.130) | |
| A reaction: If you can judge that the similar things 'will' dissolve, you can cut to the chase and judge that this thing will dissolve. |
| 11897 | A principle of individuation may pinpoint identity and distinctness, now and over time [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: One view of a principle of individuation is what is called a 'criterion of identity', determining answers to questions about identity and distinctness at a time and over time - a principle of distinction and persistence. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: Since the term 'Prime Minister' might do this job, presumably there could be a de dicto as well as a de re version of individuation. The distinctness consists of chairing cabinet meetings, rather than being of a particular sex. |
| 11898 | Individuation may include counterfactual possibilities, as well as identity and persistence [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: A second view of the principle of individuation includes criteria of distinction and persistence, but also determines the counterfactual possibilities for a thing. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: It would be a pretty comprehensive individuation which defined all the counterfactual truths about a thing, as well as its actual truths. This is where powers come in. We need to know a thing's powers, but not how they cash out counterfactually. |
| 11883 | A haecceity is the essential, simple, unanalysable property of being-this-thing [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Socrates can be assigned a haecceity: an essential property of 'being Socrates' which (unlike the property of 'being identical with Socrates') may be regarded as what 'makes' its possessor Socrates in a non-trivial sense, but is simple and unanalysable. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: I don't accept that there is any such property as 'being Socrates' (or even 'being identical with Socrates'), except as empty locutions or logical devices. A haecceity seems to be the 'ultimate subject of predication', with no predicates of its own. |
| 11889 | Essentialism must avoid both reduplication of essences, and multiple occupancy by essences [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: The argument for unshareable properties (the Reduplication Argument) suggests the danger of reduplication of Berkeley; the argument for incompatible properties (Multiple Occupancy) says Berkeley and Hume could be in the same possible object. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.8) | |
| A reaction: These are her arguments in favour of essential properties being necessarily incompatible between objects. Whatever the answer, it must allow essences for indistinguishables like electrons. 'Incompatible' points towards a haecceity. |
| 11877 | An individual essence is the properties the object could not exist without [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: By essentialism about individuals I simply mean the view that individual things have essential properties, where an essential property of an object is a property that the object could not have existed without. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: This presumably means I could exist without a large part of my reason and consciousness, but could not exist without one of my heart valves. This seems to miss the real point of essence. I couldn't exist without oxygen - not one of my properties. |
| 11882 | No other object can possibly have the same individual essence as some object [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Individual essences are essential properties that are unique to them alone. ...If a set of properties is an individual essence of A, then A has the properties essentially, and no other actual or possible object actually or possibly has them. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.1/2) | |
| A reaction: I'm unconvinced about this. Tigers have an essence, but individual tigers have individual essences over and above their tigerish qualities, yet the perfect identity of two tigers still seems to be possible. |
| 11886 | There are problems both with individual essences and without them [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: If all objects had individual essences, there would be no numerical difference without an essential difference. But if there aren't individual essences, there could be two things sharing all essential properties, differing only in accidental properties. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.5) | |
| A reaction: Depends how you define individual essence. Why can't two electrons have the same individual essence. To postulate a 'kind essence' which bestows the properties on each electron is to get things the wrong way round. |
| 11909 | Unlike Hesperus=Phosophorus, water=H2O needs further premisses before it is necessary [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: There is a disanalogy between 'necessarily water=H2O' and 'necessarily Hesperus=Phosphorus'. The second just needs the necessity of identity, but the first needs 'x is a water sample' and 'x is an H2O' sample to coincide in all possible worlds. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1.) | |
| A reaction: This comment is mainly aimed at Kripke, who bases his essentialism on identities, rather than at Putnam. |
| 11899 | Why are any sortals essential, and why are only some of them essential? [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Accounts of sortal essentialism do not give a satisfactory explanation of why any sortals should be essential sortals, or a satisfactory account of why some sortals should be essential while others are not. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.6) | |
| A reaction: A theory is not wrong, just because it cannot give a 'satisfactory explanation' of every aspect of the subject. We might, though, ask why the theory isn't doing well in this area. |
| 11906 | The Kripke and Putnam view of kinds makes them explanatorily basic, but has modal implications [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Kripke and Putnam chose for their typical essence of kinds, sets of properties that could be thought of as explanatorily basic. ..But the modal implications of their views go well beyond this. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 11905. The modal implications are that the explanatory essence is also necessary to the identity of the thing under discussion, such as H2O. So do basic explanations carry across into all possible worlds? |
| 11894 | Origin is not a necessity, it is just 'tenacious'; we keep it fixed in counterfactual discussions [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: I suggest 'tenacity of origin' rather than 'necessity of origin'. ..The most that we need is that Caesar's having something similar to his actual origin in certain respects (e.g. his actual parents) is normally kept fixed in counterfactual speculation. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 6.9) | |
| A reaction: I find necessity or essentially of origin very unconvincing, so I rather like this. Origin is just a particularly stable way to establish our reference to something. An elusive spy may have little more than date and place of birth to fix them. |
| 11887 | Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities' [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities'. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: [She gives an argument for this, based on Forbes] I certainly favour the notion of individual essences over the notion of bare identities. We must distinguish identity in reality from identity in concept. Identities are points in conceptual space. |
| 11890 | De re modality without bare identities or individual essence needs counterparts [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Anyone who wishes to avoid both bare identities and individual essences, without abandoning de re modality entirely, must adopt counterpart theory. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: This at least means that Lewis's proposal has an important place in the discussion, forcing us to think more clearly about the identities involved when we talk of possibilities. Mackie herself votes for bare indentities. |
| 11892 | Things may only be counterparts under some particular relation [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: A may be a counterpart of B according to one counterpart relation (similarity of origin, say), but not according to another (similarity of later history). | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: Hm. Would two very diverse things have to be counterparts because they were kept in the same cupboard in different worlds? Can the counterpart relationship diverge or converge over time? Yes, I presume. |
| 11893 | Possibilities for Caesar must be based on some phase of the real Caesar [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: I take the 'overlap requirement' for Julius Caesar to be that, when considering how he might have been different, you have to take him as he actually was at some time in his existence, and consider possibilities consistent with that. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 6.5) | |
| A reaction: This is quite a large claim (larger than Mackie thinks?), as it seems equally applicable to properties, states of affairs and propositions, as well as to individuals. Possibility that has no contact at all with actuality is beyond our comprehension. |
| 11884 | The theory of 'haecceitism' does not need commitment to individual haecceities [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: The theory that things have 'haecceities' must be sharply distinguished from the theory referred to as 'haecceitism', which says there may be differences in transworld identities that do not supervene on qualitative differences. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.2 n7) | |
| A reaction: She says later [p,43 n] that it is possible to be a haecceitist without believing in individual haecceities, if (say) the transworld identities had no basis at all. Note that if 'thisness' is 'haecceity', then 'whatness' is 'quiddity'. |
| 16944 | Science is common sense, with a sophisticated method [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Sciences differ from common sense only in the degree of methodological sophistication. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.129) | |
| A reaction: Science is normal thinking about the world, but it is teamwork, with the bar set very high. |
| 16940 | Induction is just more of the same: animal expectations [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Induction is essentially only more of the same: animal expectation or habit formation. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.125) | |
| A reaction: My working definition of induction is 'learning from experience', but that doesn't disagree with Quine. Lipton has a richer account of different types of induction. Quine's point is that it rests on resemblance. |
| 16941 | Induction relies on similar effects following from each cause [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Induction expresses our hopes that similar causes will have similar effects. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.125) | |
| A reaction: Some top philosophers are also top teachers, and Quine was one of them, in his writings. He boils it down for the layman. Once again, he is pointing to the fundamental role of the similarity relation. |
| 16933 | Grue is a puzzle because the notions of similarity and kind are dubious in science [Quine] |
| Full Idea: What makes Goodman's example a puzzle is the dubious scientific standing of a general notion of similarity, or of kind. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.116) | |
| A reaction: Illuminating. It might be best expressed as revealing a problem with sortal terms, as employed by Geach, or by Wiggins. Grue is a bit silly, but sortals are subject to convention and culture. 'Natural' properties seem needed. |
| 11905 | Locke's kind essences are explanatory, without being necessary to the kind [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: One might speak of 'Lockean real essences' of a natural kind, a set of properties that is basic in the explanation of the other properties of the kind, without commitment to the essence belonging to the kind in all possible worlds. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: I think this may be the most promising account. The essence of a tiger explains what tigers are like, but tigers may evolve into domestic pets. Questions of individuation and of explaining seem to be quite separate. |
| 16934 | General terms depend on similarities among things [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The usual general term, whether a common noun or a verb or an adjective, owes its generality to some resemblance among the things referred to. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.116) | |
| A reaction: Quine has a nice analysis of the basic role of similarity in a huge amount of supposedly strict scientific thought. |
| 16938 | To learn yellow by observation, must we be told to look at the colour? [Quine] |
| Full Idea: According to the 'respects' view, our learning of yellow by ostension would have depended on our first having been told or somehow apprised that it was going to be a question of color. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.122) | |
| A reaction: Quine suggests there is just one notion of similarity, and respects can be 'abstracted' afterwards. Even the ontologically ruthless Quine admits psychological abstraction! |
| 8486 | Standards of similarity are innate, and the spacing of qualities such as colours can be mapped [Quine] |
| Full Idea: A standard of similarity is in some sense innate. The spacing of qualities (such as red, pink and blue) can be explored and mapped in the laboratory by experiments. They are needed for all learning. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.123) | |
| A reaction: This reasserts Hume's original point in more scientific terms. It is one of the undeniable facts about our perceptions of qualities and properties, no matter how platonist your view of universals may be. |
| 16947 | Similarity is just interchangeability in the cosmic machine [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Things are similar to the extent that they are interchangeable parts of the cosmic machine. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.134) | |
| A reaction: This is a major idea for Quine, because it is a means to gradually eliminate the fuzzy ideas of 'resemblance' or 'similarity' or 'natural kind' from science. I love it! Two tigers are same insofar as they are substitutable. |
| 16932 | Projectible predicates can be universalised about the kind to which they refer [Quine] |
| Full Idea: 'Projectible' predicates are predicates F and G whose shared instances all do count, for whatever reason, towards confirmation of 'All F are G'. ….A projectible predicate is one that is true of all and only the things of a kind. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.115-6) | |
| A reaction: Both Quine and Goodman are infuriatingly brief about the introduction of this concept. 'Red' is true of all ripe tomatoes, but not 'only' of them. Hardly any predicates are true only of one kind. Is that a scholastic 'proprium'? |
| 7375 | Quine probably regrets natural kinds now being treated as essences [Quine, by Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The concept of natural kinds was reintroduced by Quine, who may now regret the way it has become a stand-in for the dubious but covertly popular concept of essences. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969]) by Daniel C. Dennett - Consciousness Explained 12.2 n2 | |
| A reaction: He is right that Quine would regret it, and he is right that we can't assume that there are necessary essences just because there seem to be stable natural kinds, but personally I am an essentialist, so I'm not that bothered. |
| 16935 | If similarity has no degrees, kinds cannot be contained within one another [Quine] |
| Full Idea: If similarity has no degrees there is no containing of kinds within broader kinds. If colored things are a kind, they are similar, but red things are too narrow for a kind. If red things are a kind, colored things are not similar, and it's too broad. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.118) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] I'm on Quine's side with this. We glibly talk of 'kinds', but the criteria for sorting things into kinds seems to be a mess. Quine goes on to offer a better account than the (diadic, yes-no) one rejected here. |
| 16936 | Comparative similarity allows the kind 'colored' to contain the kind 'red' [Quine] |
| Full Idea: With the triadic relation of comparative similarity, kinds can contain one another, as well as overlapping. Red and colored things can both count as kinds. Colored things all resemble one another, even though less than red things do. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.119) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Quine claims that comparative similarity is necessary for kinds - that there be some 'foil' in a similarity - that A is more like C than B is. |
| 16937 | You can't base kinds just on resemblance, because chains of resemblance are a muddle [Quine] |
| Full Idea: If kinds are based on similarity, this has the Imperfect Community problem. Red round, red wooden and round wooden things all resemble one another somehow. There may be nothing outside the set resembling them, so it meets the definition of kind. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.120) | |
| A reaction: [ref. to Goodman 'Structure' 2nd 163- , which attacks Carnap on this] This suggests an invocation of Wittgenstein's family resemblance, which won't be much help for natural kinds. |
| 11907 | Maybe the identity of kinds is necessary, but instances being of that kind is not [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: One could be an essentialist about natural kinds (of tigers, or water) while holding that every actual instance or sample of a natural kind is only accidentally an instance or a sample of that kind. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: You wonder, then, in what the necessity of the kind consists, if it is not rooted in the instances, and presumably it could only result from a stipulative definition, and hence be conventional. |
| 16942 | It is hard to see how regularities could be explained [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Why there have been regularities is an obscure question, for it is hard to see what would count as an answer. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.126) | |
| A reaction: This is the standard pessimism of the 20th century Humeans, but it strikes me as comparable to the pessimism about science found in Locke and Hume. Regularities are explained all the time by scientists, though the lowest level may be hopeless. |
| 8140 | God is love [John] |
| Full Idea: God is love. | |
| From: St John (23: First Epistle of John [c.90], 4.16) | |
| A reaction: Used by Ayer as an example of meaningless religious language (see Idea 5209). One might translate it as 'the existence of God is a necessary condition for the existence of love in the universe'. Like matter is needed for gravity. Not totally meaningless! |
| 8139 | If you love the world, then you do not love the Father [John] |
| Full Idea: Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. | |
| From: St John (23: First Epistle of John [c.90], 2.15) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as an essentially wicked teaching, and one step on the road to suicide. The rejection of life is the worst aspect of all religions - surely it is obvious that we should try to make the best of life, not turn our backs on it? |